Meet the 1GHz, Symbian Anna-running Nokia 500

Inevitably it won’t raise as many eyebrows as the Sea Ray or N9, and ultimately it runs a dying operating system, but hey – the Nokia 500 doesn’t look too shabby.

The handset was announced on The official Nokia Blog this morning, and the Finnish manufacturer describes the Nokia 500 as “fast, light and multicoloured”. Exciting stuff.

The term “multicoloured” had us thinking the Nokia 500 might be an eccentric metrosexual, but it simply refers to the changeable back cover. There’ll be three colours in the box, with more - including purple, azure blue, pink, coral red, orange and dark silver – coming soon.

The Nokia 500 has a 3.2in capacitive display with a 640 x 360 resolution, the camera is 5MP, and there’s a 1GHz processor under the hood. It has 2GB of on-board storage (expandable to 32GB) and of course runs Symbian Anna, bringing an improved browser and split-screen messaging.

In terms of battery life, you’re looking at 5-7 hours of talktime, 450+ hours standby, or 35 hours of music play.

Fancy it? The Nokia 500 will set you back €150, and will be available “from the third quarter”.